“Felicia was the daughter of the witch-Queen Taniquel,” he said. “And Carlo—gods forgive me, I tried to kill him even though I loved him!—was the heir to the throne of King Rafael. Together, they destroyed my family.”
“Of course! Naotalba called you Deslucido, not MacEarn. How can that be? Everyone thought that family extinct. I see now they were wrong. But the war against King Damian ended years before either of us were born.”
He nodded. “As you may have guessed, I am the only surviving member of that once-great family. After the last battle, my uncle and his son Belisar were executed, but not my father, the laranzu Rumail Deslucido.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Dyannis said. And how he was responsible for using bonewater dust in the Battle of Drycreek. “I thought he perished in the fall of Neskaya Tower.”
“No, he escaped to the wild lands beyond the Kadarin. He married a local woman, took her name, and raised my brothers and myself, swearing us to only one purpose.”
Revenge.
Dyannis shuddered, both at the obsession that had driven Eduin’s father and the harshness of Rafael’s victory. Such things did occur in war, she supposed, although many times, the conquering lord would exile a worthy adversary, keeping his sons as hostages to ensure a lasting peace. Perhaps Rafael had an overriding reason to treat his enemy with such ruthlessness.
“Even if King Rafael acted out of malice, surely it should have ended there,” she said aloud. “He had no sons, so the throne passed to a collateral line and thence to Carolin. Surely that is justice enough.”
“There can be no justice for such a crime as his, save for the complete obliteration of his line—and hers,” Eduin said bleakly. “After all, that is what they did to us. Without his sorcerer’s skills, my father would have perished. Their slaughter would have been complete. I do not say that my father’s vengeance was right, only that it was justified.”
So many lives lost or ruined, Dyannis thought, whole stretches of land poisoned for generations, villages laid waste, families bereft of loved ones. And for what? To fuel some King’s greed for power?
Yet everything she knew about Rafael Hastur and Queen Taniquel suggested they were not senselessly evil.
Her astral form shivered, and she knew that in the physical realm, a hail of burning stone and wood had fallen across her and Javanne. Droplets of clingfire struck her in a dozen places. Her hair and gown caught fire. She looked down at her psychic form to see the pale flames rising. In another instant, she would feel the agony of burning. Here in the Overworld, however, she could slow the passage of time, long enough at least to learn why she and so many others must die.
She reached out to Eduin, grasping his arms. “Why? What started it all? What caused such hatred that men would treat one another in such monstrous fashion?”
“They could not—” Eduin’s voice stumbled. “They feared to let us live.”
“Why? What had your family done?”
“It was not what we did.” He sounded even more desolate than ever. “It was what we were. It was because of the Deslucido Gift.”
“And what was that? Some relic from the Ages of Chaos?”
“I do not know how it began, by design or some accident of breeding, only that if anyone found out, it would be the death of us all.”
“What was this Gift, that Rafael Hastur and Queen Taniquel would commit such barbarity to eliminate it?”
Eduin gazed at her for a long moment. The ingrained secrecy of a lifetime rose up behind his eyes, holding him immobile.
Screams shivered through the Overworld. The flames grew brighter, tinged now with the orange-white of clingfire.
“At least tell me before I die!” she cried.
He blurted out, “We can defeat truthspell.”
“What! That isn’t possible!”
“Believe me, carya preciosa, it is more possible than you imagine. I have done it myself, stood in the blue fire and spoken things I knew to be false.”
Abhorrence rose up in her like bile behind her throat. As Varzil had said, she had an instinct for seeing the political implications of things. She knew immediately what it would mean if truthspell could not be trusted. Without such assurance, no pact or treaty would stand, and even a King’s honor would be suspect. The only certainty would lie in power, and the key to power was laran weaponry. Varzil’s Compact, and any hope of a lasting peace, would perish like dayflies in a Hellers storm.
“This Gift,” she said thickly, “all of your family possessed it?”
“Only my father and I had it in full measure. My uncle, King Damian, and Prince Belisar could do it only with the aid of my father.”
“So the Hasturs—”
“Somehow, King Rafael and Queen Taniquel must have found out. But they thought Damian and Belisar were the only ones left alive. They didn’t know my father survived—or that he was the one responsible for Damian’s ability to nullify truthspell.”
“Ah!” The cry burst from her. She knew why Rafael and Taniquel had slain their conquered foes, out of fear for their entire world. What were the lives of two men, or two dozen, against the very foundations of truth?
The Hasturs, Rafael and Taniquel, had killed the wrong men. That single act of injustice gave rise to a revenge that consumed the lives of everyone it touched. Nor would it end with the destruction of Hali Tower. Her vision went black as she looked upon a charred and smoking landscape.
Carolin would not rest until he discovered who had launched the attack, and all the wide lands would be set ablaze. Men would reach for their most powerful weapons in the name of righteousness. The clingfire that even now consumed her flesh would be only the beginning.
45
Only the beginning . . .
The thought echoed through Eduin’s mind. He watched Dyannis sink into herself, defeated. Her robes glimmered like red flames. In moments, the clingfire would consume her. He reached out, praying that his own insubstantial flesh might ignite and burn along with hers.
Dyannis looked up, and he saw in her eyes a surge of indomitable will. She had always had a temper, but it was now refined, mastered.
“It must not happen,” she said tightly. “And it will not. Eduin, I am as good as dead, as are all the others at Hali Tower. We must not waste our deaths.”
What did she mean to do? Reach into the lake for the Cataclysm device and drag all of Darkover into the conflagration?
“The only way to ensure that no more such weapons are ever used is to prevent their creation. The only people who can do that are we leronyn ourselves. Think, Eduin! Would you or I or any of us be willing to make clingfire or bonewater dust if we truly knew what it did to its victims? If we were linked, mind to mind, with our fellow leronyn as they die?”
Eduin shook his head. Once he had believed that those who created the terrible power of laran weaponry ought to be the only ones who decided how it was to be used. What Dyannis proposed, however, was absurd. She meant to use the dying agony of her own mind, and those of her colleagues at Hali Tower, to convince anyone with laran of the horror of what they had done. Even as he marveled at her courage, he knew it was in vain.
“It is impossible,” he said. “Even through the relays, you cannot reach so many.”
Dyannis grasped both his hands and spoke with quiet certainty. “Alone, I cannot. But together, linked with the circle at Hali, we can.”
She was no longer the inexperienced novice with whom he had first fallen in love, nor the matrix worker content with a subordinate place in the circle, nor even the leronis who had summoned the dragon over Hali Lake out of her own rage.
Dyannis had become a Keeper, powerful and adept, and what was more, she saw in him that same strength. He did not know if she were right, or if he could fulfill her trust in him. He only knew he had to try, as he had never tried before.
Eduin felt Dyannis bring his mind into full rapport with hers. Her mental touch was unlike that of any male Keeper he had ever known, yet supple and
vital. She drew upon his strength as she reached out to the others in Hali Tower.
... an older woman, her face bathed in flames . . .
... a man bent over a relay screen . . .
... a child, his talent still raw and new . . .
... a Keeper’s voice, Let me be, Lewis-Mikhail, for there is no hope for any of us . . .
... and then a sudden surge in power as one after another, a circle of trained minds joined them . . .
Dyannis gathered up the concentrated mental force and shifted its resonance. Like water, like the cloud-stuff of Hali Lake, it became an exquisitely sensitive medium for transmitting laran impressions. Only then did she open their combined minds to physical sensation and emotion.
Pain surged through the unity. Eduin reeled with it, but he held on. Throughout Hali, others were doing the same, pouring everything they felt into the hands of their Keeper. Even as the fire ate into her own flesh, Dyannis held fast. The intensity mounted as the circle became a crucible.
In a single, sweeping movement, Dyannis released the pent-up forces.
Flaring light . . . searing pain, past all bearing . . . flames that rose and struck inward, consuming . . . mounting fire, smoke . . . walls crumbling and falling . . . voices raised in shrieks, wild lamentations . . . death raining down from the sky . . . a woman’s body blazing like a torch, the smell of burning hair, charred bone . . .
Like a fireball of pain and terror, the mental sending blasted out in all directions. Eduin rode with it, sensing its impact upon each vulnerable mind.
In the city of Hali and all through the Venza Hills, every person with a scrap of laran, men and women and children, cried out in anguish. In Thendara, Queen Maura collapsed screaming into the arms of a stunned Carolin. Along a trail, a leronis in a green cloak jerked her horse to a violent stop, her face contorted. Across the Plains of Arilinn, workers shuddered, momentarily blinded. Someone sobbed, “Death, death falling from the sky—the fire—the screams—”
Triumph rose in Eduin and as soon faltered. For every mind they reached, there were still more beyond their range. The initial broadcast had reached many, but the Hundred Kingdoms stretched wide and far. Even now, the circle created by Dyannis was beginning to fall away. Raimon’s mind went silent, an aching emptiness. Others were still alive, but rapidly losing the ability to concentrate, to hold their minds open. Hearts stuttered, lungs choked with smoke, consciousness faded.
They would never reach Dalereuth, home of the illegal circles that made clingfire and worse for any lordling who could pay, or Temora on the sea coast, or far Aldaran. These kingdoms would swoop down, unhindered by Compact or scruple, upon the Lowlands. The Hastur reign might come to an end, its leronyn helpless to defend their lord, and its place would be taken by a tyranny far more terrible.
Denial raged through him. Whatever he had done to bring this disaster about, he must undo, and more.
In the Overworld, he rose and stepped away from Dyannis. She followed him with bleak eyes, for she was nearing the end of her own strength.
There was a source of power that he could call upon. He could not command it, only ask.
The next instant, Naotalba stood before him in a dissolving mist, a wind rippling through her cloak. As her features came clear, he recognized the pale skin, the ebony hair rising from a widow’s peak, the gown the color of a moonless sky.
Wordless, he knelt before her.
“What would you have of me, Eduin Deslucido?” The voice bore none of its former cruelty. Instead, Naotalba sounded weary, almost desolate.
Whatever she had been, he had turned her into a creature of hatred and destruction. He had torn out her human heart, leaving only the bitterness of vengeance. Then he had turned away from the path set by his father so many years ago, but the events he had set in motion still unfolded. She was as much a prisoner of that destiny as he. He had no right to ask, nothing he could use to compel.
Redemption, he thought.
“Ah!” she cried, shuddering, and he realized that she had understood it to mean for her, as well.
“Help me,” he pleaded. “Help me to undo the harm I have done.”
A glimmer of a smile passed over Naotalba’s lips, and the faintest blush of rose touched her cheeks. She stretched out her arms. Her cloak flared wide, dissolving at the edges. It grew, covering sky and ground, but its shadow was no longer the icy cold of Zandru’s realm. Instead, warmth, sweet as a summer dawn, suffused him.
The next instant, he was once more linked to Dyannis and the two of them formed the heart of the expanding circle. Their unity included not only the workers at Hali, but every mind they touched. All resonated to the same pattern; all burned and wept.
From the shores of Temora to the farthest reaches of the Hellers to the borders of the Dry Towns, every telepath on Darkover joined for one brief, bright moment.
No more! The words passed from one mind to the next, building into a ripple, then a chorus, then a roar. The cry arose from the innermost hearts of leronyn across Darkover.
No more terrible weapons!
No more enslaving the Gifts of the mind to destruction!
No more war at the command of men who hide in safety behind their walls!
The moment passed, and Eduin realized that Dyannis, too, was slipping away from him. She no longer burned with orange-white flames. The light in her eyes dimmed. He reached for her hands, as she had reached for his. His fingers passed through her flesh as if she were water.
Had the gods no mercy? To have come so far, to have found her at last, and now to lose her after so short a time!
I will not leave you.
Eduin could not be sure which one of them had spoken, for their minds were still linked.
Wherever you go, so will I.
Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, her image strengthened. Color returned to her lips and her robe of Keeper’s crimson. He felt warm flesh, hard bone, smooth skin beneath his fingers. A scent like wildflowers filled his nostrils.
I have brought you back, he thought in wonder.
No, dear heart. You have come here with me.
He glanced behind her and saw not the familiar unchanging gray of the Overworld, but green rising to meet a golden sky, and then all color dimming to silver. Within the mist, trees bent and swayed. Slender figures moved in a secret dance, their eyes luminous, their hands beckoning. Music, like the faint chiming of bells, hung on the air.
Eduin’s last conscious thought was of a figure not of shadow but of light, as it bent to gather both of them in its embrace.
EPILOGUE
Slowly, Varzil Ridenow climbed the stairs leading to the private quarters of his sworn brother, Carolin Hastur. The guards in livery of blue and silver stood watching. Some of them bent their heads in token of respect for his grief. One or two had tears in their eyes.
He could not remember a time when he had felt so utterly empty, and yet so filled with pain. When Felicia died, it had been as if half his heart were torn away. Hestral Tower had been under siege, and all their lives depended upon his swift actions. There had been no time to feel the loss. More than that, he had not felt Felicia’s death as if it were his own.
He had been with Dyannis, his mind merged with hers, her pain as real and vivid as if it had been his flesh that burned. His throat had gone raw and then numb with screaming until he could no longer breathe the greasy smoke. His own bones had splintered in the heat.
Aldones, let me not remember! He paused, for the moment unable to go on, and ran one hand over his eyes. Let me not forget.
Every telepath across the face of Darkover, trained or raw, had heard the massed voices of the workers of Hali. Even in their death agonies, they had somehow held their minds open. It did not seem humanly possible, and yet they had done it. For days thereafter, relays lay silent, their workers too stunned to operate the screens. By the grace of the gods, Varzil had already completed his diplomatic mission for Carolin when the blow struck. He had hurri
ed back to Thendara, dreading what he would find.
Hali Tower lay in ruins. Only the rhu fead with its holy things, housed in a separate location under layers of laran-keyed insulating fields, and part of the foundation had survived. It would take a generation to reassemble a working circle and rebuild the physical structure. He intended to offer Carolin the services of Neskaya Tower in healing and reconstruction, as well as volunteers to create the germ of a new circle. The balance of their powers, Crown and Tower, required the formal offer and acceptance. Perhaps he would send Ellimara Aillard, who had almost completed her Keeper’s training.
Varzil reached the top of the stairs and Carolin’s paxman, who had been leading the way, paused to let him catch his breath. Varzil managed a half-smile and gestured for the man to continue. A few moments later, he was escorted into the presence of his friend.
Carolin had aged visibly since Varzil had last seen him, although it was but a few tendays ago. Carolin had only a modest Gift, telepathy the least of his talents, but clearly he had been caught in the psychic blast of Hali’s dying circle. More than that, the loss of so many talented men and women under his rule and care had slashed him to the bone.
They greeted each other formally, and then the paxman withdrew. Carolin crossed the space between them and held out his arms in a brother’s embrace.
Although physical contact was difficult at best for most telepaths, Carolin was one of the few people Varzil trusted with such intimacy. They had shared much, dreams and struggles, laughter and betrayal, and now this overwhelming grief.
Varzil felt the strength of Carolin’s grip, the muscles hardened from years of regular sword practice, the quick indrawn breath, the steadiness of mind. There was no need to speak. Their understanding ran deeper than words. He found the silence far more comforting than any empty phrases.
At last, they drew apart. Varzil felt a lightening of heart, as if some portion of his bredu’s strength had seeped into him.
Carolin led him to two cushioned chairs drawn up near a small fire. The day was warm enough to make it unnecessary, but Varzil welcomed the homey touch. He sank gratefully against the pillows.